#hymns sung in concentration camps

[dianaleaghmatthews]

Hymn Story: Lead, Kindly Light

John Henry Newman wrote a poem “The Pillar of the Cloud” in 1833. The poem was first published in the British Magazine the following year. Charles H. Purday’s “Tune” was married to the poem. It then became the hymn we know “Lead, Kindly Light.” As a young priest, Newman became sick while in Italy and was unable to travel for almost three weeks. In his own words: Father Newman Before starting…

[hieromonkcharbel]

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,

Lead Thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home,

Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou

Shouldst lead me on;

I loved to choose and see my path; but now

Lead Thou me on!

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,

Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still

Will lead me on.

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till

The night is gone,

And with the morn those angel faces smile,

Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!

St. John H. Newman, C.O.

**********************

"Lead, Kindly Light" was sung by Betsie ten Boom, sister of Corrie ten Boom, and other women as they were led by the S.S. Guards to the concentration camp Ravensbruck during the Holocaust.

Lead, Kindly Light was sung by a soloist, Marion Wright, on the RMS Titanic during a hymn-singing gathering led by Rev. Ernest C. Carter, shortly before the ocean liner struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912.

The hymn was also sung aboard one of the Titanic's lifeboats when the rescue ship Carpathia was sighted the following morning. It was suggested by one of the occupants, Noëlle, Countess of Rothes

[writemarcus]

Beethoven Opera is upgraded to the current prison system

‘Fidelio' wins new set-up with support from Black Lives Matter movement

Ruan Ebright, The New York Times12 May 2018 | 4:00 p.m.

Few opera choirs are as poignant as the group of inmates who sings in the First Act of Beethoven's Fidelio opera . Temporarily released from the cells, the prisoners almost whisper an ode, like a hymn, to freedom: "Oh, what joy to breathe and again and freely in the open air."

The transformation of oppression into freedom lies in the essence of Fidelio , which the small and intrepid Heartbeat Opera Company is performing until May 13 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in Manhattan. There the recorded voices of the choir of the Midwestern prison join in the Beethoven Opera Prisoners' Choir.

To revive the work in the era of the Black Lives Matter movement, Heartbeat's artistic director, Ethan Heard, and artistic director Daniel Schlosberg, set the stage for production within the American criminal justice system, which has sent a disproportionately large number of people to prison. color.

With the opera Fidelio and its competitor Don Giovanni in the #MeToo era, the Heartbeat company continues to follow the same steps as last year's Madame Butterfly , which addresses Asian issues, Orientalism, and culture clichés. geishas Puccini's opera, Heard said in an interview, "is timely and embedded in the current discussions, and I want to find another opera that can do something like this."

He was raptured with Fidelio , whom Beethoven composed after the French Revolution.The opera recounts the efforts of a wife to save her imprisoned husband by mistake, disguising himself as a man and infiltrating the prison. "I thought it was a proper story for 2018," he said.

In the adaptation of the company Heartbeat, the heroine is Leah (Leonore in the original opera), whose husband Stan (Florestan) a naturalized citizen and activist of the Black Lives Matter movement, is arrested during a protest and taken unjustly to prison. Some of the minor opera roles were eliminated, and Schlosberg arranged for Beethoven's score for two pianos, two cellos, two horns and percussion - a camera set that would musically emphasize the story of heroism amidst the tenebrous opera.

It is a version that fits with the increasing efforts in the field of the opera to put experiences and perspectives of the blacks in the center of the stage, as it is the case of Charlie Parker's Yardbird, of Daniel Schnyder; The Summer King , by Daniel Sonenberg, about black basketball player Josh Gibson; Champion , by Terence Blanchard, about a gay boxer, Emile Griffith; and work still under development by Tania Leon, Little Rock Nine.

Musicologist Naomi André, in her upcoming book Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement, describes how operas in the US and South Africa - countries with problematic racism stories - have been used to "offer an alternative narrative of racial experience as opposed to the dominant culture." The power of operas, she writes, "rests on what they offered to their original audience as well as on what they can still offer us in the present day."

There is a historical precedent in the case of the changes made by the Heartbeat company in Fidelio , and their exploration of the political relevance of the opera. Beethoven, a resolute defender of the ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity, was fascinated by the play of Nicolas Bouilly Léonore, or l'Amour Conjugal , from the time of the Revolution.But the composer's librettist, Joseph Sonnleithner, had to bypass the censorship of the Austrian government, setting the opera in 16th-century Spain and emphasizing the "good wife virtue" rather than civil rights.

Unhappy with the unsuccessful play of the play in 1805, which coincided with Napoleon's occupation of Vienna, Beethoven re-wrote Fidelio the following year, condensing the three acts into two. When he and the poet Georg Friedrich Treitschke revised it again in 1814, to coincide with the Vienna Congress, when European leaders devised a new geopolitical map after the Napoleonic era, the composer added a new final chorus that gave more symbolic weight to the prisoners recently released.

"The fact that the opera has undergone many revisions has given us permission to understand that the music was not so unalterable," Scholsberg said.

Although 19th century audiences saw the opera Fidelio as a fundamentally domestic story, the twentieth-century conductors and directors, beginning with Gustav Mahler and Alfred Roller in 1904, began to present it as a predominantly political allegory. Mahler cut the music from the first act, which he considered inconsequential, and inserted the dramatic Overture No. 3 , Leonore, in the second act, while the stylized, partially abstracted scenery gave the story a timeless universality.

Many productions after World War II were explicitly political, more punctual than timeless. In a critique of Nazi oppression, Fidelio was the chosen work for the reopening of the opera houses of Germany and Austria. And in a divided Germany during the Cold War, directors on both sides of the Iron Curtain transposed Fidelio into scenarios ranging from the Soviet Gulags to South American military juntas and German concentration camps. And they took some liberties in the case of the libretto.

Rejecting Beethoven's spoken dialogue as well as the recitatives sung that became a standard alternative, Wieland Wagner opted for a narrator in his 1954 production in Stuttgart, Germany. Other directors replaced the dialogue with the political verse of the 20th century.

Heartbeat's production also replaced the spoken text. Heard worked with playwright Marcus Scott to turn German dialogue into a contemporary American discourse. (In a scene, Leah begs the prison administrator to briefly free them: "They are people, people who have made mistakes, some whose only mistake is being poor." (She also insinuates that race is a factor).

A Schosberg student organized a choir in the Minnesota prison and put the collaborators in contact with other choirs in Ohio, Iowa and Kansas. In March the team rehearsed with the Oak Community Choir, the Kuji Men's Chorus, the Ubuntu Men's Chorus and the East Hill Singers.

Behind the concrete walls and metal fences they met enthusiastic artists. A member of the Ubuntu choir proudly showed off his tattoo of Johann Sebastian Bach. Video recordings and audio groupings will be put together to create Beethoven's sublime music.

"These choirs have to do with reaching out to humanity through the community. And the directors of these choirs have found a way to nurture the idea that these inmates are people."

He concluded: "And this is what Fidelio is." / Translation Terezinha Martino

[veleth95]

Sunguard Site Write Day #22: High Home

The air around the camp was dark after the Sunfury’s last assault on the Alliance at Nethergarde. The Night Elves that they had fought were Azerothians, but these were people they had history with. The heroes who had gone to save their world from the savage planet of the orcs, and miraculously survived until this night when elven steel met dwarven cannon. Not as allies, but as foes.

They had not succeeded easily, either, and the gloom only worsened as the pained cries of injured elves echoed across the dust of Netherstorm. As one of the few Light wielders in the party Veleth was assigned to their care, but there was little he could offer after expending so much energy in the fighting. At most he could chant the old hymns and relieve some pain until the true medics arrived, should they survive that long.

One of his patients rose weakly to speak to him, wincing in pain and forcing the words from their chest. “Blood Knight… I am sorry, but I must ask… Is there anything you know from the High Home?”

The question struck Veleth as odd, his concentration broken. “I apologize, if you can clarify I would be glad to answer.”

“A song, just something to remind us of what we’re here for.” The elf fell back to the ground, dry dirt puffing out at the impact. “Please. If I am to die here, let it be with home in heart…”

Veleth closed his eyes, remembering back to search out something to grant the soldier’s request. He had sung at the temple, and to lull his children to sleep, but it was rare that he sang for the sake of singing. Life as an Ashcaster, as a priest, dictated his attention turn to other matters.

But there was one, a tale of their history. Of the Highborne and their heroes. And so in a low, rich voice Veleth began to sing the Thalassian melody to the elf. He even managed to infuse the words with his will to an extent, carrying faint Light to all those in earshot. The camp quieted, turning to him as he continued. A palpable calm fell over them, and for a moment the nostalgia of it overpowered weariness and ache.

Soon the soldier drifted to sleep, the bleeding could not be stopped and Veleth mourned that he could not do more to help, but he was satisfied that he could grant them peace. It was in short supply on the remains of the orcs’ world, but he mused how even as small a thing as that could bring it to these warriors of Quel’thalas. For now, it was enough.

@thesunguardmg